Many people in the ancient world believed spices came from paradise. The egyptians mummified their dead with cumin, the chinese burnt cloves to commune with the spirit world, this is a clove tree. Now cloves that we use in cooking are the dried flowers and some Medieval Europeans that come from this tree. Believed nutmeg was the plant originated on some the only cure for the plague. Incredibly small volcanic pepper was so valuable islands called the moluccas, it was used instead of money, and centuries ago, thousands of people and it was pepper that the romans were so mad about. Lost their lives fighting over the little thing, because it was more valuable than gold. Imbued with magical properties, im in the roman ruins of baalbek, situated 50 miles sought after for medicines east of beirut in lebanon. And aphrodisiacs, with the power to build empires here in baalbek once stood the most impressive and destroy lives, temples outside of rome. This is the story of spice. They took 10,000 slaves over 200 years to build. I am merrilees parker, and i am going on a voyage i have to say, this place around the world is totally overwhelming. With my chef friends padma lakshmi, who is in india and spain, tyler florence, who is in mexico. You may find the following scenes disturbing. And peter gordon, who is in china. Mmm, its pretty pungent stuff this. Mmm. This is, or rather was, the temple of jupiter, and if i can get up here, you can get the picture of what an extraordinary piece of engineering this was. And though only six columns remain, theyve survived centuries of war and earthquake. And each one is 20 meters tall, and i feel absolutely tiny. Baalbek is situated in present day lebanon, in the beqaa valley. Traders brought their wares from egypt in the south, through baalbek, and up through turkey, and then onto rome. Baalbek has been an important holy place for thousands of years. Under the phoenicians, it was the scene of human sacrifice and temple prostitution. The romans added to the phoenician city, building baalbek on an extravagant scale unlike anything in rome. At its height, baalbek housed a quarter of a million people. From time immemorial, traveler merchants trod ancient routes trading spices. They made up fabulous tales to boost their value to a public eager for novelty. Ambergris was said to be the spittle of dragons, and cinnamon was stolen from nests guarded by giant birds. Although the romans werent the first to use spices in their cooking, they were the first to use them in industrial quantities, and the one they were mad for was pepper. This is pepper. Rome was ransomed for it, people were murdered over it, and i bet you didnt think about that the last time you twisted a bit over your pizza. Black pepper only grew on the malabar, or west, coast of india, a 5,000mile journey to the tables of rome. The spice capital of the Malabar Coast is cochin, in kerala. Its still today a vibrant port where all sorts of spices are grown and sold. Padma lakshmi is there to find out more. Its the combination of keralas climate, hills, and soil that yield the biggest quantity and some of the best spices in the world. Black pepper is the king of spices here. Its also known as black gold. [speaking foreign language] not only was it a prosperous commodity, but it used to be given as a treasured gift to visiting dignitaries. And black pepper and white pepper are actually the same thing, theyre just picked and treated differently. This black pepper is picked when the corns are still green, and its laid out on terraces called barbeques, and they dry them in the sun until they get black and shriveled. And it hits. Its much more aromatic than white pepper, and it hits the tip of your tongue. White pepper is the same berry, only its picked when the berry is red, and its soaked so that the outer husk is removed, rendering it much milder than the black pepper. And when you eat it, it actually hits the back of your throat, rather than the tip of your tongue. From rome to the west coast of india was a threeyear round trip boat ride. But during the reign of emperor tiberius, sailors discovered they could use the monsoon winds both there and back and make the trip in a year. So, even more precious pepper poured into rome. Im at Butser Ancient Farm in england, where, besides iron age houses, theyve also rebuilt an authentic roman villa. In the worlds oldest cookbook, the roman cook apicius uses black pepper in at least two thirds of his recipes. Sally grainger shows me a pork recipe using the romans favorite spice. The smell of freshly ground pepper on hot food, as you know, is glorious. It was important in every dish. Every dish in the cookery book that survives says, finish with black pepper, freshly ground. They were obsessed with pepper, werent they . Straight away, i run into a spice ive never seen before. What are they . Now these are wonderful. This is a bayberry. The laurel leaf, the bay leaf. As in the laurel leaf that they wore on their heads . Exactly, yes. Bay is a very strong flavor. You smell it, it has it has the aroma of the bay leaf. Technically, you cant eat a bay leaf, of course. No, you just infuse. Exactly, this you this you can actually put into the food. We also add local mediterranean spices lovage, dill, cumin, and coriander. The final one is something called asafetida. Youve heard of it . Yes, i use it. Its great in dal. It stinks. It stinks. Its asa as in resin and fetida as in feted. And in india, do you see . Again, this is an indian spice, isnt it . This originates in india. Well, it actually originated in afghanistan. That was where it first was grown. Its meat tenderizing qualities are paramount. What sally is cooking is the first recorded example of finger food. You cut it into dice, but you leave it on the skin, and the fat keeps the meat moist. So you have these little cubes of meat, and when its roasted, they can be pulled off. And theres one more surprise for me. We need to add the magic ingredient, roman fish sauce, liquamen its called. Fantastic now, i thought fish sauce was asian. Well, yes, but the romans and the greeks, in fact the greeks first, invented fish sauce. They developed the idea of taking anchovies, small anchovies, and mixing it with salt, and allowing them to dissolve and ferment. It should be a tablespoon, but we dont have one, because the romans didnt have tablespoons. Give that a stir for me. So thats our marinade for the meat. Ok. Just pour it like that . Yeah, all over. Apicius tells us that we should now leave the meat to marinade for three days. Gosh, it mustve been quite interesting by the end of the three days. Yes, i think so. This is the kind of oven a welloff roman would have taken with him on his travels. Sally puts the coals on the top of the oven, creating even allaround heat. While the meat is cooking, we make a sauce out of pepper, lovage, sweet wine, and fish sauce. Whoa 40 minutes later, the lid comes off. Unh. Oh, wow, look at that i think we can safely say weve done it a little bit a little bit toasty. It smells awesome. Its good, isnt it . Its like ribs or something. You just want to lick your fingers. Mmm beautiful. Thank you so much. Its delicious. Mmm [laughs] at the other side of the known world, the chinese were also going nuts for spices. When the romans and their ambassadors arrived in india, they heard chinese being spoken. And that was because the chinese had been trading in spice as early as 200 b. C. Now thats 1,000 years earlier than any european had even set foot on the spice islands. From china, merchants had, for centuries, used overland routes to persia, routes that became known as the silk routes. But now, the chinese were discovering the indonesian islands to their south. Nutmeg and mace came from the banda islands, the only place in the world where they grew at that time. Nutmeg is commonly used in fillings for pasta, often with spinach. Mace is used in milkflavored sauces such as bechamel. Cloves came from a few tiny volcanic islands nearby. Derived from the french word clou, meaning nail, the clove oil contains eugenol, an antiseptic still used in toothpastes and gargles. My friend peter gordon travels to remote south china, where the yao tribe have used imported cloves in their cooking for centuries. Spices play a key role in cantonese cooking. The yao have always been farmers, and their indigenous produce has influenced their recipes. And one of the most vital ingredients grows here in northwest guangdong. These are star anise trees, and the starshaped pod has an intense aromatic, and slightly sweet flavor. According to chinese medicine, its good for coughs, stomachache, and breath freshening. And, of course, its also an essential ingredient in the fivespice powder. The recipe for a traditional fivespice powder is equal quantities of indigenous sichuan pepper, cassia, or chinese cinnamon, and star anise, along with fennel seeds, originating in the mediterranean, and cloves from the islands to the south. Mmm, its pretty pungent stuff this, and when youre cooking with it, a little goes a long way, so you dont need to use too much, and it does keep for a while. Peter meets sunmae, who still cooks in the traditional way. I brought you a present, some fivespice powder that i made earlier. What do you think of that . Nice. Nice . Thats nicer than nice. I ground that myself. Its wonderful. Ok, what are we going to do . Now, first, you have to chop the chili. And some ginger. Ok, and this garlic, ive never seen this before. Its like one clove of garlic is the whole head, its wonderful. Yeah, we only use it for cooking pork. Oh, perfect for this dish then. While the romans spiced their pork with black pepper and mediterranean aromatics, in china, they cooked the same basic dish using the spices of the far east, making for a completely different taste. In sunmaes kitchen, they cook the pork in a sauce made of sugar, ginger, and chilies. Now you need to add some water, soy sauce, and rice wine. They add some shiitake mushrooms and dried plums. Then leave it to cook for an hour and a half. Ah, it smells delicious yes. [laughs] mmm delicious, yes . Its even better with boiled rice. The ingredients from dishes like this show that spices had been flowing to and fro between china and europe for ages. And that was thanks to some powerful middlemen. Welcome to lebanon. The europeans were mad about spices. But where spices came from, christians feared to tread, so they used the arabs as middlemen. Cities like byzantium, alexandria, cairo, and tripoli here in lebanon became immensely wealthy on the back of the spice trade. Arabs took control of all the key spice ports of the mediterranean, as islam spread from arabia west towards morocco and east to the Malabar Coast in india. Now im here at a caravanserai, which is kind of like a camel motel, where, over a thousand years ago, camels laden with spices would come to rest after long and incredibly hard journeys across the arabian deserts. Later, restaurateur naziih shows me the spices i need for traditional lebanese cooking. I can see cumin, i spied it here. Smell it. Can i smell . I can taste it myself. Yeah, i love it. Quite nice, so fresh. Its great. Cumin has a sweet aroma with a mildly bitter taste. Its native to the Eastern Mediterranean, and it has been used for over 5,000 years. It was thought in Medieval Europe to encourage faithfulness. Oh, can i have a small bag, please . Yeah. And what else is a classic spice youd have in meze . You have cinnamon too. Cinnamon. Wow, theythey are the most enormous cinnamon sticks i think ive ever seen. We never buy them at home like this, i dont think. People dont even realize its a bark. We dont get cinnamon sticks like that back home, do we . Its enormous. No, we havent still already. Not grounded, but small sticks. Its definitely not ground that, is it . I dont think i need the whole bag. Ill take one stick. No problem. Ok, thank you very much. Is there anything that you think i shouldnt leave lebanon without . Any spice . I think theres another thing, something traditional here we use is the sumac. Sumac. Can i try some sumac . You need to get her sumac. And isis sumac a mixture of spices . Its kind of a tree, exactly, you know. Oh, its a tree . Its actually a spice itself. Naz tells me that sumac is used widely in lebanese, iranian, and turkish cuisines. The romans used sumac as a souring agent, in the same way we would use lemon juice. [laughs] im going to be spiced out, its perfect. Youll need a suitcase when you travel home. [laughs] naz introduces me to another delight of lebanese life cardamom flavored coffee. Wow, the taste of cardamom is, um. Is quite strong. For you. For me, yeah. [laughs] its going to pick you up in the morning. Cardamom is part of the ginger family and grows in southern india. Handpicking is essential so as not to damage the pods, which is why cardamom is one of the most expensive of all spices. Arab traders became addicted to cardamom coffee, known as qahwa. Good manners dictate that you drink at least three cups. Which gets me out of my seat. Back on the spice trail, i visit the beqaa valley. Peaceful at the time of my visit, now politically volatile. I have come to find out about a spiceladen meal which sums up middle eastern hospitality. Anissa helou introduces me to two staples of which are middle eastern appetizers. First up, tabbouleh, a salad made of bulgur wheat, parsley, and tomatoes. Its found all over the middle east, but the lebanese version is special. In lebanon they use spices in it. It has cinnamon, sevenspice mixture, pepper. And you know the thing about cinnamon . In the old days it used to be considered an aphrodisiac. Wasnt everything . [both laugh] and the concubines in the harem used to rub themselves with cinnamon bark before the sultan came to visit them. [laughs] but, you know, they should have. All of them smeled of cinnamon. I dont know which one he chose and how he chose them, but apparently it was a real turn on. Tomatoes were only added to the recipe when the spaniards introduced them in the 16th century to europe and the old world. And this is always in tabbouleh, isnt it, tomato . Always, and not peeled, not seeded, nothing. You know, you use the whole thing. Well, also because you want it to crunch, and you dont want it to be too soft. We throw in the bulgur wheat, but just a handful. Aphrodisiac. The cinnamon. [laughs] and quite a bit. The sevenspice mixture and now this is a very interesting mixture. It hasits seven spices. We use it in a lot of Different Things in lebanon. The sevenspice mix includes black and white pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, and sumac. Ah, can i help . Ill go around that right side. Here, let me do this side. Anissa also shows me how to make the classic dish hummus, which we garnish with paprika. It just looks like a picture, you know . Thats it. Now, the turks do hummus slightly differently, and what they do is that they season the hummus with cumin and paprika, and so the hummus is a little bit less creamy in color, a bit darker and spicier, not hot spicier, but tastier. Mmm, its so light. Meze is the perfect al fresco food fresh, healthy, and completely delicious and full of the spices indigenous to this part of the world. You know thats good for you, dont you . Uhhuh. Another spice native to the Eastern Mediterranean is saffron. The arabs took it west with the spread of islam into moorish spain, where 70 of the saffron now grows. Padma goes to spain to tilt at windmills. The region of la mancha is best known for don quixote and those famous windmills, but its also the place where spains precious crop of saffron is harvested. Saffron comes from the delicate crocus flower, which blooms for only a few weeks a year. The fragile red stamen inside the flower Must Immediately be handpicked. This painstaking labor is celebrated at the World Championship of saffron picking. It takes about 200 flowers to yield one single gram, which is why saffron is so expensive. Down on the coast in nerja, at ayos place, padma finds out just why the spaniards go to so much trouble for saffron. The answer is paella, and ayo is the master of this iconic spanish dish. And this is the most important part saffron. This is what separates a mediocre paella from an authentic spanish paella. And were going to add it to the middle of the pot. Now im putting in tomatoes. They have been peeled. At this point were going to add some green peppers. Ayo adds a spanish short grain rice called bomba. And his secret ingredient is this tasty stock made from chicken, seafood, and locally grown vegetables. Its hard to imagine paella without the distinctive taste and even color that saffron, a spice from the east, gives this classic spanish dish. Mmm. Buenisimo. Around a 1,000 years ago, a tiny nation state formed an unlikely bond with their former archenemies. Im at a crusader castle here at sidon, lebanon. Im going to have a look around. How much is that . 4,000 for one person. Thank you very much. Perfect, thats 4,000. Thats about 2. 50. The arabs were key players in the spice trade for centuries. But when they joined forces with venice, the modern era for spices was born. The crusaders arrived in boats belonging to the venetians, who acted as bodyguards and taxi drivers, and, once here, the venetians lost no time in doing a spot of trading. Venice joined forces with egypt. And the egyptians protected the venetian fleets as they sailed from cairo to venice. By the end of the 12th century, thanks to spice, venice was the richest state in the world. The risks may have been great, but the profits were colossal. The likes of venices extravagant wealth was unseen before in the western world and spelled an end to the dark ages in europe. The venetians transported spices over the alps to the tables of the rich northern europeans. In those days, one pound of ginger was worth the equivalent of one sheep, and one pound of mace, the equivalent of three sheep or one cow. Even then, the medieval palate was very sophisticated in its taste for spice. Hampton court palace in england was in its day the grandest most sophisticated palace in europe. Henry viii was the gourmet king, and the cooks in his kitchens often cooked up feasts for 600 people. In the kitchens of Hampton Court i am introduced to some spices ive never heard of by food archaeologist richard fitch. This one here . Those are grains of paradise. They were also called the malagueta pepper, um, the alligator pepper, or the guinea pepper, they all come from theyre all the same name for a pepper that comes from the guinea coast from west africa. Grains of paradise are distinctly feisty. This i dont recognize here whats this one . That, which looks like juniper berries, they are in fact cubebs, also called the javan tailed pepper. Its not a true pepper, its a berry, a dried berry, but it has a peppery taste. Grown mostly in the wild in sri lanka and indonesia, cubebs are the dried unripe fruits of a member of the vine family. Richard shows me how to make beef ystywyd. Well, we need to cut it up into small, what they call gobbets, or mouthsized pieces. Thats brilliant. Gobbet. You know, you almost know what it means just by that. It